One of my favorite sessions at the last Emerge online conference, Exploring User 2.0 was the hands-on closing session on Digital Storytelling. John Sandars invited us to upload a single image "that represents your feelings about engaging with web 2.0 technologies" prior to the session, and we talked through 12 submitted pictures.
The session was very lively, thought provoking and funny. People who had submitted pictures and were present talked through what they were trying to get at. Some people adopted orphaned slides and tried to imagine what their creators had been trying to get at, or made up their own versions. There was a fair amount of collective meaning making, and many salutary reminders that meaning is a slippery, uncontrollable beast.
If you'd like to join in, you can go do so now with our special extended SlideShare version. All the slides are up, accompanied by snippets from the sessions text chat. Go along, and add your own thoughts or impressions to one (or more!) of the pictures.
If one of the pictures is yours, I'll be asking you to send me further details for posting next week (once everyone has had a chance to peruse the images and leave comments). I'll be asking for a sentence of what the picture is of (& how it was made, if that's relevant) and info about what you were trying to represent.
To me, the session really represented the strengths of our serious fun ethos - using an innovative approach to reflective practice to scratch well past the surface of users experiences. Enjoy!
Overview for Keywords: games, jiscemerge0608, making meaning, narrative, pictures, stories, story telling, user experience, visual
Blogs with Keywords: games, jiscemerge0608, making meaning, narrative, pictures, stories, story telling, user experience, visual
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I, too, found the session particularly good - just a shame I was late to the party! My image, slide 11, the two cats, was from flickr (with a suitable licence - so many I wanted to use were restricted, but I was happy with my choice). It represents to me the underlying tensions involved in what is a disruptive 'technology'. Many to many communication could have far reaching impacts, not only in education but politically and socially. I sense there is the possibility of some form of catastrophic (in the mathematical sense) change - a sudden shift in how we do things, and in who has the power. I don't think we are there yet, but I am not sure we will necessarily be overtly aware of it when we are.
In my mind, I sub-titled the picture 'the calm before the storm'. It was entertaining to watch the cats get a web2.0 style makeover towards the end of the session. It turns out they were not very polite to each other! But this is a type of interaction which would not, in my experience, have happened in a face to face meeting. People would not have really been able to spend time 'modifying' the image, unless it was scaled up and stuck on the wall, or similar. And the sense of play, of explorig ideas, was tangible. The cats may have been calling each other names, but I ended the session feeling closer to the other participants.
In the light of a recent keynote by John Selby, I have to mention that these events really do help build community. Being a recent 'addition' to the family, though, and typically taking some time to find my feet in a new social group, I also have to say that the JISC community is probably the most welcoming and least cliquey bunch of (intelligent, articulate, brilliant) reprobates I have had the pleasure of working with.
It was fantastic to have you along & I'm ringing my mum now to tell her about the wonderful compliment about the community culture. Serious fun is a big commitment for us, as well as all the associated, risky & reprobate activities :)
I'm going to add your comments to the slideshow next week, along with everyone else's we can russel up (will be great to find out what Lawrie Phipps was *really* thinking, or if he just submitted a picture of birds cos he does that every time he's asked for a picture of something). I wish I had a screen shot of the 'after' community engaged version of your cat pic, it was quite funny, although might have bumped up our ratings.
Really looking forward to seeing Emerge people at the Alt-C & at the fringe event - F-ALT http://f-alt.wetpaint.com/